Thursday at the White House, President Donald Trump directed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate the import of aluminum and its effect on national defense.

Trump said, “Today I’m calling on Secretary Ross to prioritize the investigation he initiated yesterday into whether the foreign aluminum imports are jeopardizing our security and to issue a report based on his findings. Based on those findings, Secretary Ross will make formal recommendations to the White House as to what to do about the problem and whether or not we do tariffs or taxes or something else to get our aluminum business going again. Aluminum is critical to our manufacturing and defense industry base. Its vital components mean everything from military aircraft and armored vehicles to our naval ships at sea.”

“We cannot afford in these dangerous times to become dependent on foreign nations for the aluminum that our military relies on,” he continued. “You look at our ships. I went to see some of the ships last week and so much is aluminum-based and much of that aluminum comes from foreign countries, which is absolutely insane. Today we’re sending another clear signal to the world, we will fight for American workers, for American jobs, and we will fight always for the American dream. We’re bringing it back. We’re bringing it back fast, jobs are coming in. We produced almost 600,000 jobs just in the short time that I’m in office. That number is going very much higher over the next few months.”